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Number of murders almost doubled over year

Official figures show big increases in homicide and theft offences, but a sharp drop in fraud, in the 12 months to the end of June 2023.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said that recorded homicides were up by just over 30% In the second quarter of this year compared with the same period last year.

The number of recorded murders almost doubled – from 24 in the second quarter of 2022 to 47 in the same period this year.

The category that covers robbery, extortion and hijacking showed a 21% increase to 2,328 incidents, while thefts rose by 25% to 71,284.

The CSO said that theft from shops accounted for nearly half of the increase in the latter figure.

Assaults fall slightly

Incidents involving fraud, deception and related offences were down 37% to 10,300 over the same period, mostly due to a fall in incidents of unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.

The number of victims of attempts or threats to murder, assaults and harassment dropped by 2% in the 12-month period.

A breakdown shows an 8% rise in assaults on males under 18, and a 13% increase in male victims aged 60 or over. Assaults on females under 18, however, were down 7%. The number of victims aged 18-29 dropped for both males and females.

The CSO described the results for other categories of crime as “mixed”, with incidents of damage to property and the environment up 7% and controlled-drug offences rising by 6%.

Burglary recorded an 8% drop, however, while kidnapping offences were down 13%.

Trends since 2019

The CSO’s analysis of changing trends since 2019 shows that burglary and fraud crimes showed the largest rate of change.

The number of burglaries fell by 46% to 9,004 in the year to Q2 2023 from the 16,583 recorded in the year to Q2 2019. By contrast, recorded incidents of fraud, deception and related offences increased by 41% to 10,300 over the same period.

Fraud figures for the latest quarter were, however, down from a high of 16,223 reached on the 12 months to Q2 2022.

The CSO still categorises the figures for recorded crime as ‘statistics under reservation’, due to concerns about the quality of data from the garda PULSE system.